An Active-only High Output-impedance Currentmode Universal Biquad Filter and Quadrature

Oscillator Based on Lossless Differentiators

*

Adirek Jantakun* Nitiphat Pisutthipong** Montree Siripruchyanun***

Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Rajamangala University of Technology
Isan, Khonkaen Campus, Khonkaen, 40000, THAILAND, E-mail: mr.adirek@hotmail.com
**
Department of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Industrial Education,Rajamangala University of Technology Isan
Khonkaen Campus, Khonkaen, 40000, THAILAND, jibpepis@gmail.com
***
Department of Teacher Training in Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Technical Education, King Mongkut's University of
Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, 10800, THAILAND, Tel: +66-2- 913-2500 Ext. 3328, E-mail: mts@kmutnb.ac.th

Abstract- This article presents a novel circuit, which can

function both a high-output impedance current-mode universal
biquad filter and quadrature sinusoidal oscillator for the same
topology. The features of the proposed circuit as a universal filter
are that the pole frequency and the quality factor can be adjusted
independently controlled via input bias current. Besides
performing as a universal filter, with an appropriate condition,
the proposed circuit can function as a quadrature oscillator
without changing its circuit topology. The oscillation frequency
and oscillation condition can be independently controlled via
input bias currents. In addition, since the proposed circuit
comprises only active elements, which are 3 CCCCTAs and 2
operational amplifiers (OAs), it is very suitable to further
develop into an integrated circuit. The PSPICE simulation
results are depicted.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Filters and oscillators are important roles in instrumentation,

measurement systems, signal processing, and covering utilized
for electronic communication system applications. The both
circuits have been developed much effort. Among several
types of the oscillators, a quadrature oscillator is widely used
because it can provide two sinusoids with 90o phase difference,
for example in telecommunications for quadrature mixers and
single-sideband systems [1-2]. Similarly, the modern
applications and advantages in the realization of various active
transfer functions, called universal biquad filters, have
received considerable attention. A universal filter may be used
in phase locked loop FM stereo demodulators and crossover
networks, used in three-way high fidelity loudspeakers [3].
Since the last decade, there has been much effort to reduce the
supply voltage of analog systems, this is due to operating in
low-voltage environments, such as portable and batterypowered equipments. As a low-voltage operating circuit
becomes necessary, the current-mode technique is more
ideally suited to this purpose, owing to their larger dynamic
range, wider bandwidth, greater linearity, simpler circuitry,
and lower power consumption [4].
The high-output impedance of current-mode universal
biquad filters and oscillators are of great interest because they
make them easy to drive loads and they facilitate cascading

without using a buffering device [5-7]. Moreover, circuits that

employ only grounded capacitors are advantageous from the
point of view of integrated circuit implementation [7-9]. The
synthesis and design of analog signal processing circuits using
only active element without passive elements are important in
fully integrated circuit (IC) technology. This technique makes
circuit becoming smaller chip area, lower power consumption,
wider frequency range of operation and programmability [1013], where the applications can be easily seen in many
literatures, for example filter [14], oscillator [15], inductance
simulator [16] and etc.
Most of oscillators based on integrator block using different
active elements [17-20] have been proposed in the literature.
But it is well known that the stage-gain of integrator is
declined at high frequency, consequently, the oscillator cannot
oscillate at high frequency because the loop gain is decreased.
This means that the re-adjusting of oscillation condition is
required at high frequency. To solve the mentioned problem,
the oscillator based on differentiator is used to achieve the
stability of stage-gain at high frequency [21].
Presently, our investigations show that previous works have
proposed versatile quadrature oscillator and biquad filter
devices for compactness purpose using different highperformance active building blocks [22-25], such as currentcontrolled current differencing buffered amplifiers(CCCDBAs)
[22], current-controlled current differencing transconductance
amplifiers (CCCDTAs) [24-25]. Reportedly, the outputs of
these circuits do not have high output impedances, making the
cascade ability challenging. The presented circuit in [24]
description is simple, the output current signals are provided at
passive element terminals. Thus, it needed to employ a current
mirror or current buffer to obtain the usable output currents,
this makes the circuit more complicated. The reported circuits
in [25] exhibit good performance in terms of electronic
tunability, high-output impedances, and independent control
of quality factor and pole frequency via input bias currents. Its
oscillation condition and oscillation frequency can be also
adjusted independently by the input bias currents. However,
the circuit is low output impedance, such circuits require an

additional current follower for some output filter functions.

Unfortunately, these reported circuits suffer from one or more
of external passive elements.
The purpose of this paper is to introduce an active-only
current-mode universal biquad filter and quadrature oscillator
based lossless differentiators, providing major standard
transfer functions (low-pass, high-pass, band-pass functions).
The pole frequency can be adjusted independently from the
quality factor. Moreover, in the case of no input current and
under appropriate condition, the proposed circuit can provide
quadrature sinusoidal signals in current-mode without
changing any circuit topology. The oscillation frequency and
oscillation condition can be independently controlled via input
bias currents. The circuit construction consists of only 3
CCCCTAs and 2 OAs without any external passive element.
Moreover, the output currents have high-impedance, which
facilitates cascading in current-mode configuration. The
PSPICE simulation results are also shown, which are in
correspondence with the theoretical analysis.

where A0 is open-loop DC gain, p1 is the first pole frequency

and B ( = A0 p1 ) is the gain-bandwidth product of the
operational amplifier. For the frequencies << p1 , (4) is
approximately given by [14-17]
A( s ) =

I A1

For the CCCCTA implemented by a CMOS technology, the

parasitic resistance Rx and transconductance gm can be
expressed to be
1
Rx =
(2)
8 n I A
and

I A2

I B1

IB2
IO

IO

A. Basic Concept of CCCCTA

Since the proposed circuit is based on CCCCTA, a brief
review of CCCCTA is given in this section. Generally,
CCCCTA properties are similar to the conventional CCTA,
except that CCCCTA has finite input resistance Rx at the x
input terminal. This parasitic resistance can be controlled by
the bias current as shown in the following equation
I y 0 0 0 0 Vy


Vx = 1 Rx 0 0 I x .
(1)
I 0 1 0 0 V
z
o


I o 0 0 0 g m Vz

n I B

(5)

(a)
(b)
Figure 1. The CC-CCTA (a) symbol (b) equivalent circuit.

II. PRINCIPLE AND OPERATION

gm =

B
.
s

(3)

Here = Cox (W / L) is the physical parameter of CMOS

transistor. In general, CCCCTA can contain an arbitrary
number of o terminals, providing currents IO of both
directions. The symbol and equivalent circuit of the CCCCTA
are illustrated in Figs. 1(a) and (b), respectively.

B. Operational Amplifier
The open-loop gain of a practical internally frequency
compensated operational amplifier (OA) is represented by
following transfer function
A0 p1
B
A( s) =
=
,
(4)
s + p1 s + p1

I in

I in

B1
s

B2
s

(a)
(b)
Figure 2. Active-only lossless differentiators for (a) inverting type (b) non-inverting

C. Active-only lossless differentiators

The proposed universal biquad filter and quadrature sinusoidal
oscillator is based on the inverting and non-inverting lossless activeonly differentiators. The implementation of the active-only inverting
and non-inverting lossless differentiators are show in Fig. 2(a) and
(b), respectively. The current transfer function can be respectively
written as follows
sR g
(6)
T1 ( s ) = x1 m1
B1
and
sR g
(7)
T2 ( s ) = x 2 m 2 .
B2
D. The proposed circuit operating as a universal biquad filter
The completely active-only high output impedance currentmode universal biquad filter is shown in Fig. 3. From the
CCCCTA properties in Section II.A-C and routine circuit
analysis, we found that each CCCCTA and the OA functions
as the lossless differentiators, the following current transfer
functions are subsequently obtained

I LP
=
I in

B2
s2 + s
Rx 2 g m 2

B1 B2
,
R
g
B1 B2
x3 m3
1

+
2
R R g g

x1 x 2 m1 m 2

(8)

I BP
=
I in

I HP
=
I in

B1 B2
Rx 2 g m 2
,
B1 B2
Rx 3 g m 3

+
1
2
R R g g

x1 x 2 m1 m 2

Rx 3 g m3 = 2 .

B2
s +s
Rx 2 g m 2
2

(9)

s2

. (10)
B2 Rx 3 g m3
B1 B2

+
1
R R g g
Rx 2 g m 2 2

x1 x 2 m1 m 2
For easy consideration, we set B1 = B2 =B , Rx1 = Rx 2 =Rx ,
g m1 = g m 2 = g m , so that I B1 = I B 2 = I B , I A1 = I A 2 = I A and from
(8)-(10), the pole frequency( o ) and quality factor( Qo ) are
expressed as
B
1
.
(11)
, Qo =
o =
g
R
Rx g m
m3 x3
1

Substituting the intrinsic resistances as depicted in (2)-(3)

can be reduced to
1
.
(12)
o = B n 8I A I B , Qo =
I B3

8 I A3

s2 + s

From (12), it can be seen that quality factor (Qo ) can be

adjusted independently from the pole frequency (o ) by
varying I A3 and I B 3 while the pole frequency can be adjusted
by I B and I A . Thus, bandwidth ( BW ) is given by
BW =
I A1

o
Qo

= B n 8 I A I B B 3 1 .
8
I
A3
I A2

I B1

(13)

IB2

I HP

I LP

I BP

I in

Substituting the parasitic resistance Rx and transconductance

gm as respectively shown in (2) and (3) into (15), the condition
of oscillation is given by
I B 3 = 2 I A3 .
(16)
Thus, the characteristic equation of the system becomes
B1 B2
(17)
= 0.
s2 +
Rx1 Rx 2 g m1 g m 2
From (17), the oscillation frequency ( osc ) can be concluded
to be
B1 B2
.
(18)
osc =
Rx1 Rx 2 g m1 g m 2
Substituting
the
parasitic
resistance
Rx
and
transconductance gm as respectively shown in (2) and (3) into
(18), the oscillation frequency ( osc ) is given by
1

B B I I 2
(19)
osc = 1 2 A1 A2 .
8 I B1 I B 2
It is obviously found that from (19), the oscillation
frequency can be electronically adjusted by setting IA1, IA2, IB1
or IB2, where the condition of oscillation can be tuned by either
IB3 or IA3. From the oscillator in Fig. 4, the current transfer
function from IO1 to IO2 is
I O 2 ( s) sRx 2 g m 2
.
(20)
=
I O1 ( s )
B2
For sinusoidal steady state, (20) becomes
I O 2 ( j ) Rx 2 g m 2 j 90
(21)
e .
=
I O1 ( j )
B2
The phase difference between IO1 and IO2 is

= 90D ,
ensuring that the currents IO1 and IO2 are in quadrature.
I A1

B1
s
I A3

B2
s
I B3

I B1

-o
z2
CCCCTA1 o
o
z1
x

B1
s
I A3

Figure 3. Proposed circuit working as universal filter

E. Proposed circuit operating as a quadrature oscillator

If no input current is applied to the circuit, as shown in Fig.
4, the system characteristic equation can be expressed as
B2 Rx 3 g m3
B1 B2
s2 + s
1 +
= 0 . (14)

Rx 2 g m 2 2
Rx1 Rx 2 g m1 g m 2
From (14), it can be seen that the proposed circuit can be set to
be a quadrature oscillator if

(15)

I A2

IB2

-o
o
CCCCTA2 z
2
z1
x

B2
s
I B3

y
CCCCTA3

(22)

Figure 4. Proposed circuit working as quadrature oscillator.

IO 2

I O1

III. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The behavior of the proposed network was verified by
PSPICE simulation. The PMOS and NMOS transistors were
simulated by using the parameters of a 0.35m TSMC CMOS
technology [26]. Fig. 5 depicts the schematic description of
the CCCCTA used in the simulations. The aspect transistor
ratios of PMOS and NMOS are listed in Table I. The circuit
was biased with 5 supply voltages. LM741 OAs with the
gain bandwidth product of B = 2 (1.0027) 106 rad.s-1 are
used.
TABLE I
DIMENSION OF CMOS TRANSISTORS
CMOS TRANSISTORS
W(m)/L(m)
M1-M4
15/0.5
M5-M8,M10-M12
6/1
M9
5.4/1
M13-M14
0.5/0.5
M15-M16
1.5/1
M17-M18,M20-M21,M23
5/0.5
M19-M22
1/0.5
M24-M29
2/1

Figure 9. The simulation results of waveforms working as quadrature

oscillator.

Figure 10. The simulation results of waveforms working as quadrature

oscillator during a steady state.

Figure 11. The simulation result of current output spectrum.

Frequency(kHz)

Figure 5. Internal construction of the CCCCTA.

Figure 6. Gain responses of the proposed circuit working as universal filter

Figure 12. Oscillation frequencies against bias currents

Figure 7. BP responses for different values of I B 3

Figure 8. HP responses for different values of

IB

The result in Fig. 6 illustrates the magnitude responses of

the universal filter. It shows that the proposed network acting
as a filter provides LP, HP and BP responses at the same time.
Fig. 7 confirms that the quality factor can be adjusted by I B 3 ,
which is not affect the pole frequency, as analyzed in (12).
Fig. 8 shows the responses of the high-pass function where
I B = I B1 = I B 2 is set to 20 A , 40 A and 60 A , respectively.
This shows that pole frequency can be adjusted electronically
without affect the quality factor, as depicted in (12). Fig. 9
shows the responses when the proposed circuit operates as a
quadrature oscillator, where bias currents IA1 = IA2 = 300A ,
IB1 = IB2 = 50A , IA3 = 20A and IB3 = 200A.

Fig. 10 shows that the simulated currents output waveform

working as quadrature oscillator during a steady state. Fig. 11
shows the simulated output spectrum, it is found that the total
harmonic distortion (THD) is about 3.320% for oscillation
frequency of 850kHz. Fig. 12 depicts the plots of the
simulated oscillation frequencies relative to the bias currents,
IA1 and IA2, where IB1 = IB2 are identical values 50A, 100A
and 200A, respectively.

[7]

IV. CONCLUSIONS

[11]

The current-mode universal biquad filter and quadrature

oscillator obtained from the same network based on
differentiators has been presented. The proposed circuit
consists of only active elements which are 3 CCCCTAs and 2
OAs. The proposed circuit can work as either a quadrature
oscillator or a universal biquad filter without changing the
circuit topology. In the case working as current-mode
universal biquad filter, the pole frequency can be adjusted
which electronically and the quality factor can be adjusted
independently from the pole frequency. With no input current
and under suitable condition, the proposed circuit functions as
a quadrature oscillator. Its oscillation condition and oscillation
frequency can be also adjusted independently by the input bias
currents. In addition, it is also found that the circuit can be
controlled electronically. Due to high-output impedances, it
enables easy cascading in a current-mode configuration. As
mentioned advantages, the proposed circuit is convenient to
fabricate integrated circuit (IC). The PSPICE simulation
results agree well with the theoretical anticipation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is funded by Faculty of Engineering,
Rajamangala University of Technology Isan, Khonkaen
Campus.
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